The Petty Demon (6 page)

Marta gave a delicate, cheerful laugh, the way well-mannered children laugh. Vershina related everything quickly and casually
as though she were simply pouring it out (she always talked that way) and all at once she stopped, sat there and smiled with
the corner of her mouth, which made her whole swarthy and dry face fall into wrinkles and slightly revealed teeth that were
blackened from smoking. Peredonov thought for a while and suddenly burst into laughter. He never reacted immediately to what
seemed amusing to him. His faculties were dull and slow.

Vershina was smoking one cigarette after the other. She couldn’t live without tobacco smoke before her nose.

“We’ll soon be neighbors,” Peredonov announced.

Vershina threw a quick glance at Marta. The latter blushed slightly, looked at Peredonov in timid expectation and immediately
averted her eyes once more into the garden.

“Are you moving?” Vershina asked. “What for?”

“It’s a long way to the gymnasium,” Peredonov explained.

Vershina smiled mistrustfully. She thought that it was more likely that he wanted to be closer to Marta.

“But you’ve been living there for a long while, several years now,” she said.

“And the landlady is a bitch,” Peredonov said angrily.

“Really?” Vershina asked mistrustfully and smiled crookedly.

Peredonov grew somewhat animated.

“She put up new wallpaper and it’s disgusting,” he explained. “The pieces don’t match. Suddenly in the dining room there’s
a completely different pattern above the door, the entire room is done in a free pattern and small flowers and then over the
door are stripes and polka dots. And the color is all wrong. We might not have noticed but Falastov came and laughed. And
everyone is laughing.”

“Imagine, what a disgrace,” Vershina agreed.

“Only we’re not telling her that we’re moving out,” Peredonov said, lowering his voice. “We’ll find an apartment and just
go, but we’re not telling her.”

“Naturally,” Vershina said.

“Otherwise, to be sure, she’ll cause a scandal,” Peredonov said and a fearful anxiety was mirrored in his eyes. “And on top
of it, why pay her for a month, for that kind of vileness?”

Peredonov burst into laughter over the happy thought that he would move out of the apartment and not pay for it.

“She’ll demand the money,” Vershina noted.

“Let her, I won’t pay,” Peredonov said angrily. “We made a trip to St. Petersburg, so we weren’t using the apartment at the
time.”

“Still, the apartment was reserved for you,” Vershina said.

“Makes no difference! She’s supposed to do the repairs, so why are we
obliged to pay for the time when we’re not living there? And the main thing is that she’s terribly insolent.”

“Well, the landlady is insolent because your um … cousin is a hot-tempered person,” Vershina said, with a slight hesitation
over the word “cousin.”

Peredonov frowned and stared dully in front of himself with half-asleep eyes. Vershina started to talk about something different.
Peredonov pulled a caramel out of his pocket, cleaned the paper away and started to chew. By chance he glanced at Marta and
had the thought that she was jealous and would also like a caramel.

“Should I give her one or not?” Peredonov thought. “She’s not worth it. Or maybe I should anyway, I don’t want them to think
that I begrudge it. I have lots of them, pocketfuls of caramels.”

And he pulled out a fistful of caramels.

“Go ahead,” he said and offered the candy first to Vershina, then to Marta. “They’re good bonbons, expensive, cost thirty
kopecks a pound.”

Each took one. He said:

“Take more. I have lots, and they’re good bonbons, I’m not about to eat bad stuff.”

“Thank you, I don’t want any more,” Vershina said quickly and tonelessly.

Marta repeated the same words after her, but somehow uncertainly. Peredonov looked mistrustfully at Marta and said:

“What do you mean you don’t want any! Go ahead.”

From a fistful he took one caramel for himself and laid the rest in front of Marta. Marta smiled in silence and bowed her
head.

“The boor,” Peredondv thought. “Doesn’t know how to thank you nicely.”

He didn’t know what to talk to Marta about. He didn’t find her interesting—she was like all the objects with which someone
else hadn’t established good or bad relations for him.

The rest of the beer Was poured into Peredonov’s glass. Vershina glanced at Marta.

“I’ll bring more,” Marta said.

She always guessed without any words what Vershina wanted.

“Send Vladya, he’s in the garden,” Vershina said.

“Vladislav!” Marta shouted.

“Here,” the boy responded quickly and close by, just as though he were eavesdropping.

“Bring some beer, two bottles,” Marta said. “Inside the chest in the passage.”

Vladislav soon came running noiselessly back to the summer house, handed the beer to Marta through a window and bowed to Peredonov.

“Greetings,” Peredonov said with a frown. “How many bottles have you polished off today?”

Vladislav gave a strained smile and said:

“I don’t drink beer.”

He was a boy of about fourteen, resembling his sister, with freckles like Marta’s, awkward and sluggish in his movements.
He was dressed in a long loose shirt of coarse linen.

Marta spoke with her brother in a whisper. They were both laughing. Peredonov kept giving them suspicious looks. When people
were laughing in his presence and he didn’t know about what, he always supposed that they were laughing about him. Vershina
grew uneasy. She was about to call Marta. But Peredonov himself asked in a spiteful voice:

“What are you laughing at?”

Marta gave a start, turned to him and didn’t know what to say. Vladislav smiled, stared at Peredonov and blushed slightly.

“It’s not polite in front of guests,” Peredonov reprimanded them. “Are you laughing at me?” he asked.

Marta blushed, Vladislav was frightened.

“Forgive us,” Marta said. “We weren’t talking about you. It was about something that concerned us.”

“A secret,” Peredonov said angrily. “It’s not polite to chat about secrets in front of guests.”

“It’s not really a secret at all,” Marta said “We were talking about the fact that Vladya is barefoot and can’t come in here,
he’s bashful.”

Peredonov relaxed, began to make up jokes at Vladya’s expense and then he treated him to a caramel as well.

“Marta, bring my black shawl,” Vershina said. “And while you’re at it, take a look in the kitchen and see how the pie is doing.”

Marta left obediently. She understood that Vershina wanted to talk to Peredonov and she was happy, in her indolence, that
there was no hurry.

“And off you go,” said Vershina to Vladya. “There’s no reason for you to hang around here.”

Vladya ran off and the murmuring sound of sand was audible beneath his feet. Vershina carefully and quickly glanced sideways
at Peredonov through the smoke which she was emitting incessantly. Peredonov sat in silence, staring straight ahead with a
vague look and chewing on a caramel. He was pleased that the others had left, otherwise, to be sure, they might have started
laughing again. Although he knew probably that they weren’t laughing at him, nevertheless, a feeling of annoyance lingered
on inside him, just the way the pain lingers on and grows after touching a stinging nettle even though the nettle is long
removed.

“Why aren’t you getting married?” Vershina suddenly said briskly, quickly. “Why are you still waiting, Ardalyon Borisych?
Varvara is no match for you, forgive me for being forthright.”

Peredonov ran his hand through his slightly tousled chestnut-colored hair and said with sullen pomposity:

“No one’s a match for me here.”

“Don’t say that,” Vershina objected and smiled crookedly. “There’s a great deal better here than her and anyone would marry
you.”

She flicked the ash from her cigarette with a decisive movement as though she were putting an exclamation mark to something.

“I don’t need just anyone,” Peredonov replied.

“We’re not talking about just anyone,” Vershina said quickly. “And since you don’t have to go chasing after a dowry there
would be a fine girl. Thank goodness you earn enough.”

“No,” objected Peredonov, “there’s more for me to gain by marrying Varvara. The Princess has promised patronage to her. She’ll
give me a good position,” Peredonov said with sullen enthusiasm.

Vershina smiled slightly. Her entire face, wrinkled, dark and seemingly tobacco cured, expressed a condescending mistrustfulness.
She asked:

“And did the Princess herself tell you that?”

With the stress on the word “you.”

“Not me but Varvara,” Peredonov admitted. “But it makes no difference.”

“You’re relying rather a lot on the words of your cousin,” Vershina said maliciously. “Tell me now, is she much older than
you? About fifteen years or so? Or more? She must be close to fifty?”

“Come now,” Peredonov said with annoyance. “She’s not thirty yet.”

Vershina laughed.

“Interesting,” she said with unconcealed derision in her voice. “Yet to look at she’s much older than you. Of course, it’s
none of my affair, but it does seem a pity from the point of view that such a fine young person can’t live the way he might
have deserved, given his attractiveness and spiritual qualities.”

Peredonov looked himself over with self-satisfaction. But there was no smile on his ruddy face and it seemed as though he
were insulted by the fact that not everyone understood him as well as Vershina did. Vershina continued:

“You’ll go far even without patronage. How can the authorities not help but value you! Why should you hang on to Varvara!
And it’s not worth your while marrying one of the Rutilov ladies. They’re all frivolous and you need a solid wife. You ought
to take my Marta here.”

Peredonov glanced at his watch.

“Time to go home,” he said and began to take leave.

Vershina was certain that Peredonov was leaving because she had touched a raw spot and it was only because of his indecisiveness
that he didn’t want to talk about Marta right then.

V
ARVARA
D
MITRIEVNA
M
ALOSHINA
, Peredonov’s mistress, was waiting for him, slovenly dressed but painstakingly powdered and rouged. Jam pastries had been
baked for lunch. Peredonov loved them. Varvara was waddling quickly around the kitchen on her high heels, hurrying all the
while to have everything ready for his arrival. Varvara was afraid that the maid, the pock-marked, fat wench, Natalya, would
steal a pastry or even more. For that reason Varvara wouldn’t leave the kitchen and as was her habit she was scolding the
maid. On a face that preserved some traces of a former attractiveness, she wore an invariable expression of querulous greed.
¹

As always, on his return home, Peredonov would be gripped by displeasure and melancholy. He made a noisy entrance into the
dining room, flung his hat on the window sill, sat down at the table and shouted:

“Varya, serve lunch!”

Varvara carried in the food from the kitchen, hobbling adroitly in the narrow shoes she wore for vanity’s sake and served
Peredonov herself. When she brought the coffee, Peredonov bent down over the steaming glass and sniffed. Varvara grew alarmed
and asked him with fright:

“What’s the matter, Ardalyon Borisych? Does the coffee smell of something?”

Peredonov glanced sullenly at her and said angrily:

“I’m sniffing it to see whether poison has been put in it.”

“Really, Ardalyon Borisych!” Varvara said fearfully. “God help you, why ever would you think up such a thing?”

“You laced it with poison hemlock!” he growled.

“What have I got to gain by poisoning you?” Varvara tried to convince him. “Enough of your tomfoolery!”

Peredonov went on sniffing for a long while and finally relaxed and said:

“If there really is any poison then you can invariably detect it as a heavy odor, just sniff a little closer, right in the
steam.”

He was silent for a while and then suddenly spoke out spitefully and derisively:

“The Princess!”

Varvara grew agitated.

“What about the Princess? What do you mean, the Princess?”

“The Princess, I’m saying,” Peredonov went on, “let her give me the position first and then I’ll get married afterwards. You
write her that.”

“But, Ardalyon Borisych,” Varvara began in a voice that attempted to be convincing, “you know yourself that the Princess has
promised only after I get married. Otherwise it’s awkward for her to ask on your behalf.”

“Write her that we’re already married,” Peredonov said quickly, rejoicing at his invention. Varvara was almost taken aback
but soon regained her wits and said:

“What’s the use of lying, the Princess will make inquiries. No, better you name the wedding day. And it’s time to have a dress
sewn.”

“What dress?” Peredonov asked sullenly.

“Do you really expect me to get married in this work dress?” Varvara cried. “Give me some money, Ardalyon Borisych, for the
dress.”

“Are you getting ready to die?” Peredonov asked spitefully.

“You’re a beast, Ardalyon Borisych!” Varvara exclaimed reproachfully.

Suddenly Peredonov felt like teasing Varvara. He asked:

“Varvara, do you know where I was?”

“Well, where?” Varvara asked anxiously.

“At Vershina’s,” he said and burst into laughter.

“You found yourself fine company,” Varvara cried spitefully. “No use saying anything!”

“I saw Marta,” Peredonov went on.

“She’s all covered in freckles,” Varvara said with growing spite. “And a mouth that’s ear to ear, you could pin it on a frog.”

“But she’s prettier than you,” Peredonov said. “Maybe I’ll go ahead and marry her.”

“Go right ahead,” Varvara shrieked, all red and trembling with malice. “I’ll burn her eyes out with acid!”

“I want to spit on you,” Peredonov said calmly.

“No you won’t!” Varvara screamed.

“I’m going to spit on you right now,” Peredonov said.

He stood up and with a dull and indifferent expression he spat in her face.

“Swine!” Varvara said rather calmly as though the spit had refreshed her.

She started to wipe herself off with a napkin. Peredonov was silent. Lately he had become even cruder than usual with Varvara.
Even before he had always treated her poorly. Reassured by his silence she said more loudly:

“It’s true, you’re a swine. It landed right in my mug.”

A bleating, almost sheep-like voice was heard in the front hall.

“Stop yelling,” Peredonov said. “Guests.”

“It’s Pavlushka,” she replied with a smirk.

Entering the room with a cheerful loud laugh was Pavel Vasilyevich Volodin, a young man who totally in face and manners bore
an amazing resemblance to a sheep. The curly hair was sheep-like, the eyes were dull and protruding—everything was just like
a cheerful sheep. In short, a stupid young man. He was a cabinet maker and had studied earlier at a vocational
school and now was working as a vocational teacher in the town school.

“Ardalyon Borisych, my good friend!” he cried out joyfully. “You’re at home, having a nice old coffee and now here I am, sure
as can be.”

“Natashka, bring a third spoon!” Varvara shouted.

From the kitchen Natalya could be heard clinking the one remaining teaspoon: the rest had been hidden away.

“Eat, Pavlushka,” Peredonov said and it was apparent that he wanted to feed Volodin. “It won’t be long now, brother, I’ll
be stepping into an inspectorship. The Princess has promised Varya.”

Volodin rejoiced and burst into laughter.

“Hey, the future inspector is having a nice old coffee!” he cried, clapping Peredonov on the shoulder.

“Do you think it’s easy to step into an inspectorship? All they have to do is denounce me—and down comes the lid.”

“And what’s there to denounce?” Varvara asked with a smirk.

“Lots. They’ll say that I was reading Pisarev
^*
—and oi-yoi-yoi!”

“But Ardalyon Borisych, you just put that Pisarev on the back shelf,” Volodin advised with a giggle.

Peredonov glanced cautiously at Volodin and said:

“Maybe I never had any Pisarev. Do you want a drink, Pavlushka?”

Volodin stuck out his lower lip, assumed the important face of a person who knew his own worth and then he said as he nodded
his head like a sheep:

“If it’s for the sake of company, then I’m always ready to have a drink, otherwise, uh-uh.”

Peredonov, too, was always ready to have a drink. They drank vodka and ate the sweet pastries.

Suddenly Peredonov splattered the rest of the coffee out of his glass on the wallpaper. Volodin’s eyes goggled and he looked
around in amazement. The wallpaper was smeared and shredded. Volodin asked:

“What’s wrong with the wallpaper here?”

Peredonov and Varvara burst into laughter.

“It’s to spite the landlady,” Varvara said. “We’re moving out soon. But no blabbing now!”

“Excellent!” Volodin cried and burst into cheerful laughter.

Peredonov went up to the wall and started to kick at it with the soles of his shoes. Following his example, Volodin, too,
pounded away at the wall. Peredonov said:

“Whenever we leave any place we always mess up the walls to let them have something to remember us by.”

“You planted some dandies there!” Volodin exclaimed in ecstasy.

“Irishka will go out of her mind,” Varvara said with a dry and mean laugh.

Standing in front of the wall all three of them were spitting on it, tearing the wallpaper and pounding at it with their shoes.
Tired and satisfied after a while they turned away.

Peredonov bent over and picked up the cat. The cat was fat, white and ugly. Peredonov pestered it—he tugged at the ears and
the tail and shook it by the neck. Volodin was roaring cheerfully and suggesting other things Peredonov could do.

“Ardalyon Borisych, blow in its eyes! Rub its fur the wrong way!”

The cat snorted and tried to tear free but it didn’t dare show its claws—for that it would have been beaten cruelly. Finally
Peredonov grew bored with this diversion and he dropped the cat.

“Listen, Ardalyon Borisych, this is what I wanted to tell you,” Volodin began. “I kept thinking not to forget on the way here
and I almost did.”

“Well?” Peredonov asked sullenly.

“Now you like sweet things,” Volodin said happily, “and I know a dish that will make you lick your fingers.”

“I know all the tasty dishes myself,” Peredonov said.

Volodin gave an offended look.

“Ardalyon Borisych,” he said, “maybe you know all the tasty dishes that people make where you come from, but how could you
possibly know all the tasty dishes that are made where I come from if you’ve never been there?”

Satisfied with the persuasiveness of his argument, Volodin laughed and bleated.

“They feed on dead cats where you come from,” Peredonov said angrily.

“Excuse me, Ardalyon Borisych,” Volodin said in a shrill laughing voice, “it may well be that people eat dead cats where you
come from, but we won’t go into that, only you have never eaten
erly
.”

“No, I haven’t,” Peredonov admitted.

“What kind of dish is that?” Varvara asked.

“This is what it is,” Volodin began to explain. “Do you know the
kutiya
^*
they serve at funerals?”

“Who doesn’t know
kutiya
,” Varvara replied with a smirk.

“So you take a
kutiya
made from millet and add raisins, some sugar and almonds—and there’s your
erly
.”

Volodin began to relate in detail how
erly
was prepared where he came from. Peredonov listened, somberly. Imagine, a funeral
kutiya
. Was Pavlushka trying to pack him off to the grave or something?

Volodin made an offer:

“If you want everything to be just right, give me ingredients and I’ll prepare one for you.”

“You might as well let a goat into the garden,” Peredonov said sullenly.

“And he’ll probably slip something else in as well,” he thought.

Volodin was offended once more.

“If you’re thinking, Ardalyon Borisych, that I’m about to pinch some sugar from you, then you are mistaken. I have no need
of your sugar.”

“Stop all the tomfoolery,” Varvara interrupted. “You know how touchy he is. Come and prepare it here.”

“And you’ll eat it all yourself,” Peredonov said.

“Why is that?” Volodin asked in a voice that reverberated with insult.

“Because it’s vile.”

“As you like, Ardalyon Borisych,” Volodin said, shrugging his shoulders. “I merely wanted to please you, but if you don’t
want it then have it your way.”

“Why did the general bawl you out?” Peredonov asked.

“What general?” Volodin countered with a question, blushed and puffed out his lower lip offendedly.

“We heard, we did,” Peredonov said.

Varvara was smirking.

“If you please, Ardalyon Borisych,” Volodin began heatedly, “you heard, but perhaps you didn’t hear everything. I’ll tell
you about the whole affair.”

“Well, we’re waiting,” Peredonov said.

“This affair took place the day before yesterday,” Volodin related, “about this very time. As you are aware, repairs are underway
in the workshop. And, lo and behold, Veriga arrived with our inspector to look things over while we were working in the back
room. Fine. I didn’t concern myself with the reason for Veriga’s appearance or what he wanted there, that was none of my affair.
We will assume that I know that he is marshal of the nobility and has no connection to our school—but I won’t go into that.
He came, and fine, we weren’t in the way, we were working away by ourselves. Suddenly they came into our room and Veriga,
if you please, is wearing his hat.”

“He was showing disrespect for you,” Peredonov said sullenly.

“And, if you please,” Volodin took up this line joyfully, “there was even an icon hanging in that room and there we all were
without hats when suddenly he puts in an appearance like some kind of mameluke. I gave myself leave to say to him, quietly
and nobly: Your Excellency, I said, please take the trouble to remove your hat because, I said to him, there is an icon here.
Was I right in what I said?” Volodin asked and his eyes goggled questioningly.

“Smart fellow, Pavlushka,” Peredonov cried, “that’s telling him.”

“Of course, why should they get away with it,” Varvara threw in her support as well. “Good work, Pavel Vasilyevich.”

With the look of a person who had been wrongly offended, Volodin continued:

“And suddenly, by his leave, he said to me: the cobbler should stick to his last. He turned and left. And that is what the
whole affair was about and there’s nothing more to it.”

Volodin felt like a hero nevertheless. Peredonov gave him a caramel by way of consolation.

Another guest arrived, Sofiya Efimovna Prepolovenskaya, wife of the forest warden, a plump woman with a goodnaturedly devious
face and smooth movements. They sat her down to lunch. She questioned Volodin slyly:

“Really, Pavel Vasilyevich, have you become a regular visitor to Varvara Dmitrievna?”

“It’s not Varvara Dmitrievna that I’ve come to see, if you please,” Volodin answered modestly, “it’s Ardalyon Borisych.”

“Haven’t you fallen in love with anyone by now?” Prepolovenskaya asked laughingly.

Everyone was aware of the fact that Volodin was looking for a bride with a dowry, he had proposed to many and had always been
refused. Prepolovenskaya’s joke seemed out of place to him. With his entire manner reminiscent of a deeply offended sheep,
he said in a trembling voice:

“If I have fallen in love, Sofiya Efimovna, then it would be no one’s concern but my own and the other person’s. And you are
just doing this to make fun.”

But Prepolovenskaya was irrepressible:

“Look,” she said, “if you get Varvara Dmitrievna to fall in love with you, who then is going to bake sweet pastries for Ardalyon
Borisych?”

Volodin puffed out his lips, raised his brows and no longer knew what to say.